The music world is abuzz with excitement over the breadth of collaborations found on Jean-Michel Jarre's 19th album, Electronica 1: The Time Machine. Released today, the album features everyone from Gesaffelstein to Boys Noize to The Who's Pete Townshend.

One of the most emotional and patriotic collaborations for Jarre was with Air, his fellow French electronic impressionists. The trio worked together on the track "Close Your Eyes," and the brand new documentary vignette above details the unique process they used to put the track together.

Jarre credits Air as an act who cross boundaries of time with their particular brand of electronicism, almost, but not quite as much as he does himself! In celebration of this, "Close Your Eyes" features electronic music technology from as far back to tape decks, through analogs, plug-ins, and even an iPod. The entire story of electronic music is held within this one piece of music.

"We are passionate about electronic music," said Air's Nicolas Godin. "Working with Jean-Michel Jarre expanded our field of experimentations. This collaboration reflected both of our knowledge in the electronic world, from tape loops to moon safari vocoders."

Check the Spotify playlist below, featuring "Close Your Eyes" and all other 18 tracks from Electronica 1: The Time Machine. Keep your ears peeled for the rumored sequel!

In this picture taken on September 30, 2015 French composer, performer and music producer Jean-Michel Jarre poses at his recording studio in Bougival, west of Paris. — AFP pic

NEW YORK, Oct 16 — When Jean-Michel Jarre helped create electronic music in the 1970s, the sound came off as revolutionary. With the genre now increasingly mainstream, Jarre is seeking to trace its evolution.

In an album to be released today, Jarre’s first of new material in eight years, the French artist has reached out to other musicians he sees as critical in electronic music, heading with them into studios to showcase their unique styles.

“Electronica 1: The Time Machine,” which will be followed by a second volume next year, features compositions by Jarre with artists as diverse as English trip-hoppers Massive Attack, Vince Clarke of synthpop sensations Erasure, downtempo activist DJ Moby and even guitarist Pete Townshend of rock legends The Who.

Jarre, who is both eager to speak philosophically about music and up-to-date on the latest pop trends, scoffs at the notion that his album is simply the latest collection of celebrity mash-ups, a common industry formula for chart-topping singles.

With most such collaborations “you send a file to someone you didn’t even meet and it’s done in a total abstract way, more sometimes for marketing reasons than anything else,” Jarre told AFP on a visit to New York.

“For this project, it was really based on the idea of physically traveling to meet people—merging DNA in studios, not going through managers or lawyers,” he said.

In a metaphorical statement of his intentions, Jarre took the fingerprints of all his collaborators and is coalescing them with his own for a series of paintings.

Jarre said he chose artists “who have this timeless element—the kind of organic, instantly recognisable sound.”

Last song of Tangerine Dream

Jarre became a surprise international sensation with his 1976 album “Oxygene,” six free-flowing yet melodic synthesiser tracks he recorded at home.

Jarre soon was drawing massive crowds to elaborate performances that coupled as light shows. His 1997 concert to celebrate Moscow’s 850th anniversary drew 3.5 million people, tying a world record, and included a live link to the Russian space station.

At 67, Jarre has spent most of the past four decades working in solitude at his studio in the Paris suburbs, which is crammed with computers, keyboards and most other instruments of his career—except his famous and imposing “laser harp.”

Jarre welcomed artists to his studio for “Electronica 1: The Time Machine,” but also went to other musicians to explore how their own home bases shaped their sound.

In the most momentous piece on the album, Jarre travelled to Austria to work with Tangerine Dream, the German group that also pioneered electronic music in the 1970s.

Tangerine Dream’s chief member, Edgar Froese, died in January at age 70, and his work with Jarre was his last.

The resulting track, “Zero Gravity,” harks back to classic albums of both Tangerine Dream and Jarre, with steady electronic progressions that turn ambient.

“I always considered that electronic music is coming from Germany and France but we had different approaches. German bands—in a rather German way—had a robotic approach and were also making a kind of apology for the machines,” Jarre said, noting how Tangerine Dream used to walk off stage with the music still playing.

By contrast, Jarre said that in France he had a more “impressionist” outlook inspired by classical greats such as Ravel and Debussy.

He also allowed his sequencers, then mostly programmed by hand, to make “subtle accidents.”

“Which is, in my opinion, what makes life. If you take a heartbeat, it is always the same, but never the same. If it was exactly identical we would die.”

From The Who to China

Townshend’s inclusion on the album may come as a surprise but Jarre credited The Who with integrating synthesisers and sequencers into rock. Their collaboration—entitled “Travelator, Parts 1, 2 and 3”—is crafted like a mini rock opera, with Townshend’s rugged vocals.

“Suns Have Gone,” the track with Moby, is built off a repeated minor chord, a signature sound of the gloomy artist whom Jarre affectionately called “the Woody Allen of techno.”

Other contributors on the album include two of France’s biggest electronic acts in recent decades, Air and M83, Berlin house DJ Boys Noize, horror movie director and composer John Carpenter and experimental artist Laurie Anderson, who worked with Jarre just as her husband, rock legend Lou Reed, died.

Jarre closes the album with Chinese classical pianist Lang Lang, who recorded his first electronic song.

Jarre hailed Lang Lang as a “genius” and said he wanted to give the album a connection to China. Jarre in 1981 was the first Western artist invited to play in China since the Cultural Revolution. — AFP

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Jean Michel Jarre first came to international fame with his number one hit album, « OXYGENE » which went on to sell over 18 million copies worldwide.

A pioneer in his field, Jarre has largely contributed to the fastest growing musical revolution of the 20th century, electronic music : conceiving music in terms of sounds rather than only in terms of notes, and thus allowing the composer to become his own craftsman.

Having followed formal studies of harmony and counterpoint at the Conservatoire de Paris, he was inspired to reinvent music at its core, with his own singular vision, deploying the technology and tools of his epoch.

This pioneering approach gave birth to worldwide hit albums such as "OXYGENE","EQUINOXE", MAGNETIC FIELDS", "ZOOLOOK", "RENDEZVOUS", "WAITING FOR COUSTEAU"...over 80 million albums sold to date.

Following through with his revolution in music, he also conceived a brand-new genre and format of concerts; breaking away from the traditional theatre and arena context, Jarre brought his music and vision outdoors to the masses. Often free and open-to-all, these stateof- the-art concert-spectaculars showcase the natural or urban environment in which they are performed -- a truly singular sonic and visual "land-art" event, conceived and performed on a unique scale for a one-off experience.

Jarre's legendary concerts have attracted Guinness Record-breaking audiences across the planet. They take place in exceptional settings, marking extra-ordinary contexts: first western musician invited to perform in post-Mao Red China, Millennium at the Great Pyramids of Egypt, Houston City concert in collaboration with NASA in memory of the Challenger space crew, Concert for His Holiness Pope John Paul II, France's Eiffel Tower in celebration of World Cup victory, Gdansk's shipyard at the initiative of Nobel Peace Laureate Lech Walesa, London's Docklands, Beijing's Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square, the Sahara Desert...to the absolute record live audience of 3.5 million in Moscow.

Most recently, Jean Michel Jarre embarked on his first ever world tour which has already taken him to over 30 countries with over 220 performances.

July 2011, HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco called upon Jean Michel Jarre to celebrate his Royal Wedding by creating and performing a concert-event in the Principality which was largely broadcast on television & Internet worldwide to an estimated audience of 3 billion.

The French musician has a dedicated ongoing engagement to the United Nations via UNESCO, as Ambassador and spokesperson for Environment and Education.